Courtesy photo
Paul Salacain of York, Maine, will be making his second trip to work with the Eben Ezer School in Milot, Haiti. Here he is with a student at the school during his first trip the summer after the earthquake in 2010.

BARRINGTON/YORK, Maine — Brian Lenzi of Barrington has built structures in far-flung locales the world over as a commander in the Air National Guard. So he’s thinking that Haiti will not be much different.

But the next few weeks will be telling as Lenzi, now retired, and Paul Salacain of York, Maine, a member of the York Rotary Club, explore the challenges and possibilities of building a guesthouse on the grounds of a school in Haiti.

Lenzi and Salacain will be traveling this month to rural northern Haiti, as part of a growing number of Seacoast area residents involved with trying to create and now sustain the Eben Ezer School in Milot, Haiti.

“The exciting part of this project is that we are looking at ways to help the school and its students be self-sufficient,” said Salacain, who also visited Milot in 2010 after the York Rotary donated a generator to the school. “We are on the cutting edge of both eco-tourism and sustainable development.”

While income at the guesthouse will help the school, the students and their school will also be a unique draw for travelers who enjoy being part of and contributing to the local culture.

The school grew from 35 students in 2007 to more than 300 students, which was possible only because of schools, rotaries and individual families in York County and Seacoast New Hampshire. Now, this community may make it possible for this school in pure rural Haiti to become economically sustainable, and a model for other similar projects.

Lenzi, who was a commander of the engineer squadron of the Air National Guard at Pease, is going to Haiti to find how much materials will the cost and what materials are available for building the 12-room guesthouse. In the past Lenzi has built structures in the Caribbean as well as South and Central America. The guesthouse is being designed by Mike Lassel of Lassel Architects in South Berwick

Salacain will learn about water tanks in Haiti and will meet fellow Rotarians in the nearby city of Cap Haitien. The Cap Haitien Rotary is expected to partner with the York Rotary as well as the South Berwick-Eliot Rotary in two grants. These grants will pay for vocational supplies, a water tank, a generator, solar panels and the shipping a container with the materials to Haiti.

Painting, sewing, carpentry and welding supplies will help train students in vocational programs. The goal of the guesthouse is to provide jobs and training for students and an income for the school.

“I am designing a building to withstand earthquakes and to be comfortable in the tropical climate of the Caribbean,” said Lassel, who said he looks at this project as an interesting challenge in a very different environment.

Milot is expected to see increased tourism in the near future. The nearby Cap Haitien airport recently expanded and the president of the country has earmarked this area, home to the UNESCO landmark, the Citadelle Laferrière, as ripe for tourism development.

The Eben Ezer School was started by Lucia Anglade, a Haitian American woman living in Long Island. It is operated by the nonprofit Life and Hope Haiti. More than six dozen families and individuals, most of them in Southern Maine and New Hampshire, sponsor children in Milot in the name of the school. These donations of $220 a year to keep the school operating.